 Here’s a surprise: Brooks & Dunn are playing the Stock Show & Rodeo. This time, the record-setting duo came back to town for two shows two weeks after playing the Go Western Gala, after which Kix Brooks went out and partied. “I went to Cowboys Dance Hall after the gala, sat in with the band and had a great time,” he told country-music writer John Goodspeed. “I don’t really remember getting home, but I heard I made it OK. I actually missed the plane the next day  that’s how bad I was.”

 Ziggy Marley played Sunset Station with Michael Franti and Spearhead opening. Marley wasn’t available for an interview, but Franti was. He told music writer Jim Beal Jr., “I think that listening is the greatest form of respect you can pay anybody in this time of so much bombardment of information. It’s difficult to get people’s attention. As a songwriter, I spend a great deal of time thinking about people like Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye and other greats whose music didn’t add clutter to the world; people whose work added interest, not clutter.”

MOVIES

 “Barbershop 2: Back in Business”: Sequel is as entertaining as the original, although this time the focus is more on Cedric the Entertainer’s Eddie, the motor-mouthed old guy. Plus there’s a story line about a high-tech competitor moving in across the street.

 “Miracle”: The U.S. hockey team’s 1980 “Miracle on Ice” is turned into an underdog-vs.-juggernaut (the big, bad Soviets) sports flick starring Kurt Russell as American coach Herb Brooks (who was killed in a car crash in 2003). Film contributed to my collection of trinkets  a stress ball shaped like a hockey puck.

 “Catch That Kid”: Before she became vampire bait, Kristen Stewart (then 13), was featured in this oddity  a heist movie perpetrated by 12-year-old. She played the mastermind of a $250,000 bank job to pay for her dad’s lifesaving surgery.

 David Copperfield: The illusionist played four shows in two nights in the Majestic Theater (where he’ll return later this month). After all his big-ticket stunts recently, he told staff writer Jessica Belasco has was into more down-to-earth stuff, like sending an audience memner to a fantasy location and teaching them how to predict winning lottery numbers. “I take people’s real dreams and make them really happen,” he said. “No one dreams about pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but they do dream about winning the lottery.”

 “Oklahoma!”: Broadway series touring version of the famed musical wrapped up its run in the Majestic Theatre. The occasion prompted me to come up with a list of lesser-known musicals about states and territories, complete with made-up story lines and gratuitous punctuation. A sample:

“North Dakota?”: Curtain opens to a bare stage. Nothing happens, and the audience quietly files out.(NOTE: I was particularly proud of the question mark, for whatever reason).

Feb. 5, 1998

EVENTS

 Pink Floyd LaserSpecacular: The big light show invaded the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre powered by the twin towers of classics rock  “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall.” Production manager David McConkey recalled some bizarre audience behavior, including moshers and stage divers in Cheyenne, Wyo. (which isn’t that odd; what else is there to do in Cheyenne?) and a guy in Cleveland who fell out of balcony while running buck naked trying to catch a laser beam. He wound up in someone’s lap 15 feet below. Talk about your lunatics on the grass…

 Look! Dave & Buster’s is opening in Crossroads Mall. “People might be used to going to a restaurant and say, waiting some time to be seated,” said general manager Mike Theriot. “Here, while you’re waiting, you can go to the midway to enjoy cool simulators and virtual reality games or step to the classic billiard area.”

MOVIES

 “Payback”: Mel Gibson knows how much he’s worth  $70,000, the amount owed him from a $130,000 heist of mob money launderers that left him with two bullets in his back. And he plows through a number of folks to get it, basically working his way up the crime food chain. Remake of the 1967 flick “Point Blank,” starring Lee Marvin.

 “Simply Irresistible”: Sarah Michelle Gellar is a suddenly magical chef in a romantic fantasy that appears to imitate “Like Water for Chocolate.”

 “Hands on a Hard Body”: Nope, it’s not a bodybuilding flick. It’s a documentary about a Longview car dealer who’ll give away a Nissan hardbody truck to the person who can keep one hand on the truck the longest. .

MUSIC

 Look! It’s Brooks & Dunn opening the Stock Show & Rodeo! The country duo played three shows in two days in the Freeman Coliseum. Amazingly, retirement rumors were floating around them 10 years ago. “We’re going to be a duo as long as the fans let us,” Ronnie Dunn told the E-N’s Wiley Alexander.

 OK, I love this week’s Page 14, beause we have a story on violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman’s Mesjstic Theatre recital next to preview of Godsmack’s concert at the White Rabbit. Better yet, we landed interviews with both Perlman and Godsmack singer Sully Erna. Excerpts:

“I would call it a sweet bonbon,” Perlman told free-lancer Diane Windeler about one of the recital pieces, LeClair’s D-major Sonata. “I love it because it is charming and lies beautifully for the instrument.”

“I remember sitting in my girlfriend’s kitchen telling her I wanted to try singing, and she’s over there cooking, just laughing,” Erna, who had been a drummer in his previous band, Strip Mind, told free-lancer David Glessner. “I figured I’d give it a shot, because if it didn’t work, I could always go back to drums. Singing sucks when there are only 12 people at the gig and you can’t hide behind the drumkit, but it’s cool because I get to vent.”

Feb. 4, 1994

MUSIC, EVENTS

 Stock Show & Rodeo: OK, where’s Brooks & Dunn? I don’t see them on the lineup. Must be a mistake. The first-week entertainment lineup included Alan Jackson, Mark Chesnutt and Gladys Knight. Yes, the one with the Pips. I noticed a bit of musical trivia in the lineup, which, of course, I had to point out in my preview:

“There’s no truth to the rumor that to qualify for this year’s Stock Show & Rodeo lineup, you had to have a hit with the word “Jukebox” in the title.” As it turned out, three of the first five performers qualified  Jackson (“Don’t Rock the Jukebox), Chesnutt (“Bubba Shot the Jukebox”) and Doug Stone (“A Jukebox with a Country Song”).

Wiley Alexander interviewed Jackson, who said, “I shaved off the mustache I had for 13 years not long ago, but I had to grow it back because my wife had grown accustomed to it…Every time I grow something or cut something off, I get lots of comments from people, especially women.”

 B.B King: The legendary bluesman played the Majestic Theatre. Music writer Jim Beal Jr. wrote that a few years prior, an appearance by B.B.’s tour bus at Bob’s Barbecue had caused a sensation. Turns out it was just King’s driver making a pit stop en route to pick up the star, who was in Vegas.

 Trekday: Brent (Lt. Cmdr Data) Spiner from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was the featured guest. An aspiring singer, his credits included the album “Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back,” which featured the single “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.” That track included backing vocals by the Sunspots, who included Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton and Jonathan Frakes.

 Jackyl/Monster Truck Jam: Yes, Monster jam hasn’t always been in January. Grave Digger and Co. shared the Alamodome spotlight with the rowdy Southern-rock band, which had achieved a notorious reputation because singer Jesse James Dupree had this habit of mooning the crowd in protest of the group’s album being slapped with an “explicit lyrics” sticker. I was lucky/unlucky enough to witness this in person once. Dupree declared, “They can sticker our album, but they can’t sticker this!” He then dropped trou, and the stage lights switched to a lone white spotlight on his bare white ass  which he scratched, for effect. Hope he behaved himself at this event; lots of kids were present.

MOVIES

 “Six Degrees of Separation”: The movie that started a cliche, and the Kevin Bacon game. Will Smith is a smooth-talking con man who who causes an art dealer and his wife (Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland) to take stock of their lives.

 “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”: Jim Carrey kick-starts his movie career with this over-the-top comedy, of which Bob Polunsky wrote, “it’s only an hour and a half, but every minute has a good laugh in it.”